What to expect at Colorado's caucuses on Super Tuesday

Local party officials prepare for a surge in attendance

Former Texas Sen. Wendy Davis enters the Hillary Clinton campaign office Friday in Longmont to speak to a group of about 30 people in advance of Tuesday's caucus. (Lewis Geyer / Staff Photographer)

Democratic, Republican precinct caucuses

Registrations of people showing up for this year's Colorado Republican and Democratic precinct caucuses is to start at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, with the caucuses that begin at 7 p.m. expected to be concluded by 9 p.m. Information about the locations of, and what will be happening at, Tuesday night's Colorado Democratic and Republican precinct caucus locations is available from county and state party websites:

As of the Jan. 4 cutoff date for voters to declare their affiliations with the Democratic or Republican parties in order to be eligible to participate in the March 1 caucuses, there were 102,244 Democrats on Boulder County's registration rolls and 44,271 Republicans, according to Mircalla Wozniak, a spokeswoman for the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office.

Those numbers may have changed slightly since Jan. 4, because citizens turning 18 since then and becoming registered voters, as well as people 18 and over who became naturalized citizens and who then registered to vote, can also participate in Tuesday night's caucuses if they officially declared Republican or Democratic affiliations when they registered to vote.

Hundreds of registered Boulder County voters changed their previous official party preferences and formally affiliated with one or the other of the two major parties between Oct. 1 and Jan. 4, Wozniak said.

Records provided by the Colorado Secretary of State's Office to the Boulder County Clerk's Office showed that during that period, 100 already-registered Boulder County voters declared themselves to be Republicans after previously having been affiliated with other political parties or unaffiliated with any party. Another 969 already-registered Boulder County voters shifted to the Democratic Party.

Colorado Democrats and Republicans planning to attend Tuesday night's precinct caucuses won't really have much of an impact on deciding which presidential candidates ultimately get Colorado delegates' votes at their parties' national conventions this summer.

Republican precinct 35 caucus delegate Judith Marlowe raises her hand to nominate a person for delegate during the Broomfield County precinct caucuses at Broomfield High School in March 2014. (David R. Jennings / Staff photographer)

Caucus-goers will, however, be participating in the start of a process that designates at least some of the other Republican and Democratic candidates for federal, state and local offices who'll wind up on their parties' June primary election ballots.

Local Democratic and Republican party officials say they've been preparing for a possible surge of first-time attendees showing up for Tuesday's precinct caucuses, including many whose interest was been prompted by national media attention to the presidential contests that have occurred — or are about to happen — in several other states' primary elections or caucus gatherings.

But the chief order of business at Colorado's caucuses will be choosing delegates and alternates to their county parties' assemblies and conventions later in March.

Precinct caucuses — along with the county, legislative-district, judicial-district, congressional-district and state assemblies and conventions that will follow in March and April — are Colorado Republicans' and Democrats' traditional path for selecting primary-election candidates for county, state legislative, U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats, although candidates can bypass the caucus-and-assembly system and petition their way onto their parties' June ballots.

Different process for Democrats, Republicans

Both the Republican and Democratic caucuses will start with multi-precinct gatherings that provide time for candidates or their designated surrogates to make brief pitches for the state, local and federal office-seekers wanting spots on the primary ballot, as well as for up to one speaker per presidential candidate.

Democrats will be conducting a formal presidential-candidate preference poll, and at least some counties' Republicans will schedule informal straw votes for their party's presidential hopefuls,

But while a presidential election year often swells the numbers of people participating in Colorado's Republican and Democratic caucuses, Republicans won't be holding an official statewide caucus presidential-preference poll at this year's caucuses, after the state GOP executive committee decided to opt out of a national Republican procedure that would have bound this state's national convention delegates to back the candidate scoring the overall statewide win in those local caucus polls.

The state Republican Party is, however, allowing county parties to conduct their own informal, unofficial, nonbinding straw polls of caucus attendees' presidential preferences, something that Boulder County GOP chairwoman Peg Cage said will be done in Boulder County and Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway said is also planned for Weld's Republican caucuses.

Cage said it's fair, when precinct caucus participants are picking neighbors to send to the party's county assembly that'll meet later in March — people who then may advance to the legislative and congressional district assemblies that follow the county meetings — that those caucus participants know who those potential delegates support in the party's current field of presidential hopefuls.

Colorado Democrats will conduct official presidential preference polls, part of their process for allocating the delegates chosen to attend the party's subsequent county and state conventions being held later in March and April.

Those local Democratic caucus preference-poll results will be called in to and announced by the state party — but they're actually nonbinding on the delegates Democrats' precinct caucusgoers decide to advance to county assemblies, including some who may eventually wind up in the state party's delegation to their national convention.

'People are confused, frustrated'

Boulder County Democratic chairwoman Lara Lee Hullinghorst and Republican Cage encouraged all would-be caucusgoers — people who have participated in those major parties' past such neighborhood gatherings as well as first-timers — to go online beforehand to get details of what those voters will be doing during the two-hour-long meetings.

In addition to electing delegates to the county assemblies, caucusgoers will elect precinct committee leaders. Democrats may discuss public-policy issues that could become part of their county party's platform. Republicans may discuss and consider policy resolutions that'll be up for votes at their county assembly.

"The phones have been on fire," Cage said, with people calling county GOP headquarters in Longmont with questions about where to go and what'll be happening at the Republican caucuses.

"We are getting a glut of calls about the caucus," Boulder County Democrats' vice chairwoman Morgan Young said in an email. "People are confused, frustrated and a little on edge" about whether they're eligible to participate and where their caucuses will meet.

Hullinghorst said that even veterans of previous caucuses should look up their 2016 caucus locations now, because some are being held at different sites than in years past.

Hullinghorst said there's continuing confusion about the fact that while Colorado allows same-day voter registration for elections — giving people the opportunity to register to vote and cast their ballots right up to, and on, a primary or general election day — separate state laws have set an earlier affiliation-declaration requirement for people to be eligible to be voting participants in Democratic or Republican caucuses.

This year's pre-caucus deadline for specifying Democratic or Republican affiliations — for voters who weren't already registered as being members of the major party whose caucuses they plan to attend — was Jan. 4.

Asked how many people she expected to attend this year's Boulder County Democrats' caucuses, Hullinghorst said: "There's almost no way to estimate." But she said her party's county organization is preparing for "around 15,000," just in case.

Cage said more than 600 Boulder County Republicans had pre-registered for the caucuses as of Thursday — a number she said will probably grow because eligible GOP voters can still show up and register right up through the start of Tuesday's gatherings.

Hullinghorst said the Democratic caucuses are "the kickoff to the election season" and "a great way to meet your neighbors and your local Democratic candidates."

Republican Cage said the GOP voters' caucus attendance is important because "we're at such a precarious time right now. This election will decide the future of our nation."

Voters selected at Tuesday night's Boulder County caucuses to be delegates or alternates to their party's county assemblies will then meet at separate locations in Longmont on March 19 — Democrats at Skyline High School and Republicans at the Plaza Event Center.

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